New to game, and going solo

[Pangaearocks]

Hi there,
Looks like this may be a good place to hang out. Have read the rules and looks like how I like to play is similar. Besides, I'm playing on PS5, so most things are out by default, such as mods and external software. If I'm still mistaken and wouldn't fit in, toss me out on my ear I suppose.

Have never played a Diablo game before, but started to read about this game and got intrigued. Had been dumb enough to jump into Path of Exile again due to liking the sounds of their new Ruthless mode, with less preposterous loot drops and a slower gameplay. It was fun through the campaign to be fair, but soon enough the big problems with the game that had been hiding underneath showed themselves, and I got bored to tears and frustrated. So here I am.

Have started a sorceress, and am only at level 9 now, but that first session was fun. No idea what I'm doing really, but hopefully it will go okay. And if not, looks like it's possible to respec at least once.

One thing I wonder about in terms of the rules here. I'm playing an offline character, but it wasn't possible to start the game properly without first making a battle.net account. The game simply refused to get past a "connecting to..." popup. Is this still okay, or is it possible to go around that somehow on consoles? Seems a bit silly to need to make a separate account for something I'll never use, for a single player game played offline. But things are pretty messed up these days, and like I said I didn't see a way around it after trying multiple times. In any case, I don't have a PS+ account, so don't think it would be possible to play "online" even if I tried. Both Sony and MS have locked basic features behind a paywall.

 

[maxicek]

Welcome to the SPF

I don’t play on console (although I have D2R on Switch) so I’m not sure, but even on PC you have to log in to you account every 30 days, so seems likely that you need the Blizzard account.

Enjoy your first play through! My advice is to just try everything without reading too much info here. When you get really stuck, you will find plenty of help here. But there is something about that first play through, where you feel you don’t really understand what is going on, that you can only experience once.

 

[LouB]

Welcome. Maxicek is right about trying everything without reading too much. All seven classes have something different to offer, so if you don't like sorcs don't just leave the game.

Now that two of us have told you not to read too much, you do need to check out the SPF Mat/Pat thread. Lots of great ideas and you can see just how diverse the game can be.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Now that two of us have told you not to read too much, you do need to check out the SPF Mat/Pat thread. Lots of great ideas and you can see just how diverse the game can be.

Thanks both of you for the nice welcome

This looks like the build thread? Think I'll stay away from there for now. Will probably just confuse (and spoil) me, and would rather puff along and see how I get on for now. Only level 9, but so far I've put points into the fireball skill, faster mana, and a defensive layer that I usually forget to use

Suppose people in here have seen this video a hundred times, but thought it was really well-made, and it's cool to get small insights into the development process. They used some pretty neat tricks, such as with the offset aura.

Sometimes I switch between the modes to see, and it's amazing how many small details they added.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Might be like wiggling a wooden stick in the air compared with what you pros typically use, but I was rather pleased about finding this Seemed like a decent idea to use a buckler too, so that's what my girl is doing currently.

 

[LouB]

two terms we frequently use are untwinked and twinked. Untwinked means your character can only use what they find. Twinked obviously means the opposite and the character can use any item either found by other characters or through trades.

Do you know about players settings? while playing solo you can adjust the game so that it thinks up to 8 players are playing use Enter /players X where X is from 1 to 8. Monsters have more hit points which means you gain experience faster also they can drop more loot.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Thanks. There are so many expressions and acronyms, so it's hard to get on top of it all. Hadn't heard about untwinked yet, but sounds like that is what my chars will be. I asked in the subforum how trades are actually carried out in practice (no reply yet I think), but without PS+, it's probably not possible for me even if I wanted to.

Have seen those "/players X" commands, but reckon it's best to keep to the basics right now, as there are some enemies that gave me issues. And almost certainly I'm making poor choices in terms of skills and points, so increasing the difficulty may not be a good idea. Nice to know for later, tho.

Is there much point in keeping all these various charms and chipped diamonds and whatnot? With a few pieces of gear, I've already overflowed personal stash and into shared stash. And I've only just started on Act 2

One thing I do miss from more modern games is to see the stats of items on the ground without needing to pick them up. I suppose this isn't possible to see via Options settings? With such a cramped inventory, with typically only room for 1-2 items, it's kinda annoying to need to drop items just to pick up another one so I can see if it is/looks better.

Had to go searching for this, and looks like there isn't a way to remove 'gems' from sockets. Had a 9% magicfind thing in my chest, which appears to be lost now when I swapped out the chest for a better one. Would be nice with a way to remove those gems. I see it's possible to remove them and retain the armour itself, but at a very steep cost.

 

[Cattleya]

Some charms are very useful. Many are not. As your leveling, I'd look for ones with decent amounts of life, mana, and resists. Faster hit recovery ones can also be useful to hit breakpoints. Magic find ones can be good to save as well. Generally, small charms will give you the most bang per inventory space. So, outside of unique charms and +1 skills grand charms (neither of which you will see for a while) you won't really find any best in slot large and grand charms. So, use them if they are currently useful to your character, but don't worry about storing them forever.

As you progress through Act 2, you'll pick up the Horodric cube. There are several useful recipes, including the ability to upgrade your gems. (3 gems of the same quality and color will give you one of the next quality, up to perfect.) The cube can also be used for a bit of extra invenroty space. It takes up 4 slots in your inventory but can hold 12 slots. So it can be a place to stash stuff you want to take back to town. As you get more familiar with the game, you'll have a better sense of what is worth picking up.

Once something has been put in a socket, there is no way to retrieve it. So, socket carefully, but stuff like gems and the lower runes are pretty common, so don't worry about "wasting" them in gear. You'll find more. As you saw, there is a recipe to clear the sockets (destroying what was socketed) which has its uses, but isn't something you'll be using very often — and not early on in your playing.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Some charms are very useful. Many are not. As your leveling, I'd look for ones with decent amounts of life, mana, and resists. Faster hit recovery ones can also be useful to hit breakpoints. Magic find ones can be good to save as well. Generally, small charms will give you the most bang per inventory space. So, outside of unique charms and +1 skills grand charms (neither of which you will see for a while) you won't really find any best in slot large and grand charms. So, use them if they are currently useful to your character, but don't worry about storing them forever.

As you progress through Act 2, you'll pick up the Horodric cube. There are several useful recipes, including the ability to upgrade your gems. (3 gems of the same quality and color will give you one of the next quality, up to perfect.) The cube can also be used for a bit of extra invenroty space. It takes up 4 slots in your inventory but can hold 12 slots. So it can be a place to stash stuff you want to take back to town. As you get more familiar with the game, you'll have a better sense of what is worth picking up.

Am I better off selling grand charms that give +1 strength and such, or are there recipes where keeping all these things could be useful? I've filled all four stashes, so need to do something Will save some room if I upgrade all the chipped gems, tho.

Have arrived in Act 5 now. Was bound to happen, but got the first death against the hordes where all the seals were. Then a handful more... Nasty trying to get my corpse stuff back when Diablo is filling five screens with fires. But eventually I got him. Poor merc keeps dying at the drop of a hat. It's getting expensive to revive the bloke (it's a paladin with health aura).

Act 4 was pretty brutal, especially near the end, but I suppose those demons were fire resistant to some degree. Or just had a ton more HP than what came before. Either way, think I need better gear now. Apart from lightning, the resistance is pretty bad. And I've got almost the entire inventory filled with various charms. Most don't do much, but +6 res is better than none I figured. But it's a huge PITA when trying to pick up loot. The cube helps for sure, but it can only take a few items. Wish it was 4x4. That would have made it easier with body armours for example.

This is what the character looks like right now. How much strength do I need? Got 40 atm, +5 from gear. Everything else has gone into Vitality. Mana is a big problem too, and I keep running out of potions in these tough areas. Feels like I cast 4-5 fireballs, and I'm out. Would be cool if somebody could offer some advice on what to do from here. Oh, and how does this farming business even work? When I've gone back to previous areas, for example to find a missed waypoint, it's been empty of enemies. How do I get them to respawn? Cause I reckon I may need to start this somewhat boring farming if I am to proceed. Act 5 is probably another uptick in difficulty.

 

[Cattleya]

When you start a new game, all of the areas repopulate with monsters. So, when running you will kill whatever your objective was and then Save and Exit and load up a new game with the character to repeat.

Right now, though, I'd continue on in Act 5. At least the first areas will be a bit easier than Act 4. (The Chaos Sanctuary is one of the nastier zones in D2.) Although the Act 5 side areas can get a bit nasty, especially the hell portal zones. (Abaddon, Pit of Acheron, and Infernal Pit.) I'm not going to lie, I usually just skip those when leveling through.

If you can get through Act 5, you'll get access to better running targets in Nightmare Act 1. The NM countess can drop some runes that you can use to make some useful runewords, and 4 socket items (also useful for runewords) can start dropping naturally in NM.

Here's a list of all the available runewords. A couple that you could probably make now would be Stealth (armor) and Leaf (staff.) You can run normal countess (she is the boss at the bottom of the forgotten tower dungeon in the Black Marsh) for the necessary runes for these, and you can shop base items for them in Act 1 or 2 normal — just make sure they are grey items and not magic. (Runewords only work in grey socketed items.) Once you can get to Nightmare countess, you can consider options like Rhyme (shield), Spirit (sword — there aren't any 4 socket shields that can drop before Hell difficulty for non-palidins), Lore (helm), and Insight (polearm for the mercenary.)

Nightmare difficulty Andariel is also a good first target for gear finding, especially for a fire character. (She takes extra damage from fire.)

Am I better off selling grand charms that give +1 strength and such, or are there recipes where keeping all these things could be useful?

At your current level, no. Really high level grand charms (such as those that drop from Hell difficulty Baal) can be useful for rerolling, but you've got a long way to go before you're killing him. The ones you're finding now don't have any recipe uses.

How much strength do I need?

Enough to equip your gear. Personally, I usually work up to about 60, which will give you a fair amount of flexibility in what you can wear without using too many points. When playing untwinked, it's also not a terrible idea to save 20-30 stat points just in case you find something really nice that you need more strength or dex to equip so you don't have to blow a respec or level up to use it.

Mana is a big problem too, and I keep running out of potions in these tough areas. Feels like I cast 4-5 fireballs, and I'm out. Would be cool if somebody could offer some advice on what to do from here.

There are a few ways to handle it. The Insight runeword mentioned above on the mercenary adds a meditation aura to him which significantly increases your mana regen. Also, keep an eye out for items that have mana per kill or lots of mana. (The Spirit runeword sword has a large chunk of mana.) It's also not terrible on an untwinked sorceress to spend a few points in Energy to make things a bit more comfortable.

 

[Pangaearocks]

When you start a new game, all of the areas repopulate with monsters. So, when running you will kill whatever your objective was and then Save and Exit and load up a new game with the character to repeat.

Thanks, that post was great and really helpful.

Okay, so just save and exit, and then reload the save? Unusual to call it "last game" under quests for example, because it sounds like if another character had completed it. Areas didn't seem to repopulate when I did this earlier, but I'll try some more.

Have completed Act 5 now, and you were right that the early areas were much easier. Baal was a tough cookie, but at least I didn't die. Poor merc died a whole lot though. Odd that the PS5 achievement for completing Act 5 didn't tick. Killed Baal and eventually took the portal, so not sure what happened there.

Resistances are back to crap now with the 40% penalty. Ouch. Made a Stealth armour earlier, which has been quite nice. Made a Nadir helmet too. Kinda claustrophobic in the caves with -3 light, but the 5 mana per kill was very useful. Hurt when I put a different helmet on, but 15 all res was too good. Got around 40 runes throughout those 5 acts, but not any high level ones I think, so can't make Insight yet (lack the 4 sockets too).
This "calculator" is fantastic

What's a good use for Larzuk's add socket reward? Is it safe to do that on a runeword item, such as that Stealth chest? I didn't dare to try

Got 50 strength now, which is just enough for the armour I'm using, but also have 20 points saved up. Had 35, but figured it was best to put some into Vitality ahead of the Baal fight.

Pretty fun game so far. Do wonder if I'll miss a more proper endgame though, as it might get a little boring playing through the same story again, and then start grinding the same areas over and over. Could possibly start feeling a bit pointless, like I have nothing more to really do, but I'll see how it goes. Thank for the friendly help

 

[Cattleya]

Is it safe to do that on a runeword item, such as that Stealth chest?

You can't use the reward on stuff that already has sockets (such as a runeword like stealth.) He'll give one socket to rare, unique, and set items, 1 or 2 sockets (50-50 chance) to magic items, and the maximum* sockets to white items. (Also grey ethereal items that don't already have sockets.) It has to be an equipment slot that can get sockets. (Helm, weapon, body armor, shield.)

When thinking long term, those rewards are usually best saved for endgame rare/unique/set items. Larzuk's quest is the only way to add a socket to unique and set items and the only sane way to do it to rares. However, you can always just make a new character and run them through the game up to that quest for more socket quests, so more can be earned with a time investment.

Determining the maximum sockets for white items can be pretty opaque. A full list of maximum sockets at different item levels for all of the socketable items can be found here. On offline PC, you can peak at an item's level using GoMule, but on console that won't be an option. So, you'd need to know what dropped the item. The item level will be the level of the monster that dropped it. Outside of special bosses, monster's levels will be tied to the area level.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Thanks, that is very good info. Then the Larzuk recipe wouldn't have worked on the Stealth armour. Will save it for later.

Have to admit I got really frustrated earlier. Are some mods 100% immune to fire or something?Ran into a named enemy in the outer cloister area, that kept reviving dead enemies (so a shaman type), and he was downright unkillable. I emptied probably a 100 fireballs into his face, but he was still standing. "I'm out of mana. I'm out of mana. I need more mana" constantly piping up, and I had maybe 20 bottles of the stuff before the going in. 12 in the belt, plus a full inventory (I've learned the gameplay loop now).

Don't think it's possible to see what type of immunities or resistances enemies have, nor their health bar, so it's just a guessing game if he was utterly immune, of simply had 10 million HP or something crazy like that. Fireball skill itself is topped out of level 23 now (+3 from amulet and a wand), plus more levels in fire skills, so I was at a loss what was going on. and of course the merc died again, so that's another 10-11k down the drain. Not that it matters much with 1 million+ in stash, but still. Frustrating to keep reviving him time and time again.

Looks like these areas (or soon) will be 40+, so should be able to get decent gear. Was looking for 3 slots on a shield, but not found any yet. An Io rune dropped, but don't think I can use it for anything. What would have been really useful is to get that mana regen aura on the merc, but I just keep getting low level runes like Nef, Ort, Tal, Tir and so on.

Anyway, I needed to take a break. It got too frustrating to head back to town every few mins to buy a new stack of mana potions and revive the merc, ID and sell what little I could pick up, and then go back through the portal to listen to "I need more mana" over and over again. Other enemies usually die to one or two hits, but this guy seemed immortal. However, with how damage scales in this game, it doesn't seem like a great idea to diversify very much either. Probably just end up with 4 skills that barely scratch enemies.

 

[Cattleya]

So, yes, monsters can be 100% immune to damage types. (In fact, by Hell difficulty the majority of mobs have one natural immunity. And a lot of them are immune to fire. On PC, you can clearly see the mods of monsters when you mouse over them which includes any immunities. I have to imagine there's a way to see it on console, but I don't have any experience to know. Hopefully some console players here have that info.

When it comes to immunities, there are 4 ways to handle them. You can build your character with more than one damage type. You can let your merc kill them — although with stuff like the fallen that resurrect mobs, it can be very hard to get them to focus on the shaman. You can skip them (on a sorceress teleport makes this a lot easier.) You can break the immunities.

The last one is the most powerful option, but is not practical untwinked. Skipping works, but isn't always very satisflying. The merc option requires a lot of patience and decent gear for the merc. For a new player, the best option is probably to build with two elements. Frozen Orb is a popular option to pair with a second element because it's reasonably powerful without spending a ton of points. Max out frozen orb and put one point in cold mastery and you've got a reasonable backup option for fire immunes for 26 points. Monsters can be immune to up to 2 elements, so you will still see the occasional fire and cold immunes. For those, one point in telekenesis (which you need to get teleport anyhow, and you really want a point in teleport) can be used to help your merc. It doesn't do any notable damage, but it will knockback the monster, allowing you to stun lock it against a wall while your merc kills it. Other popular dual element sorceresses are blizzballers (Blizzard and Fireball) and CL/FO (chain lightning and frozen orb.)

Now that you've got your feet wet, it may be time to start checking out the build guides. (Focus on guides that include info for untwinked play.) And if you're just finding it too frustrating, try a different class. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, so it's good to play a bit.

As for runes, as I mentioned above, the countess has a special rune drop and will eventually drop the runes you need for insight, which will make your mana problems pretty much disappear.

 

[snickersnack]

This looks like the build thread? Think I'll stay away from there for now. Will probably just confuse (and spoil) me, and would rather puff along and see how I get on for now.

Maybe you've already looked, but no, the Mat/Pat/Guard thread has a big list of posts people've made describing their characters that finished the game, i.e., killed Hell Baal. Most of them have some elements of a guide, but they're mostly just the stories of how the character went. Sure, skills and items are described, but there's also often just as much about strategy regarding changing gear while levelling as well as interesting drops along the way. I think the majority are not fully min/maxed characters.

There's a separate Guides thread that is exclusively about guides.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Thanks for the info. On builds, this one might be suitable? It's incredibly detailed, a bit much to take in. However, I read somewhere that Meteor was difficult to aim with on console, so maybe I'd be better off with Fireball + Frozen Orb. Would need to respec, tho, as I've put a fair few points into mana regen for example -- until I noticed it doesn't really do much at all.

I find it difficult to see all the doors in places such as the Tower, so would prefer to not run the Countess over and over again. Going down so many floors and bumping into walls everywhere was frustrating. Sure, there is teleport, but it costs a bomb in mana, and I tend to get confused about where I end up anyway, haha. Hopefully it would be possible to get the right runes eventually, just by playing through the acts. Lack of mana will be a huge issues until then, but if I understood correctly from a page I found, there is a 1/22 chance for those runes to drop from the Countess, and I don't exactly want to run that area 20+ times. Can get lucky and have it drop earlier ofc, but no guarantees.

The desert location was better in this regard, cause it had many open areas with lots of enemies.

 

[Cattleya]

A Meteorb sorc can still use Fireball as her main fire attack and just save Meteor for those times when aiming is easy. (Such as when you know Baal's Waves of minions are about to spawn, or if you decide to kill Mephisto from safely across the moat.) It's also fine to work on putting points in Fireball before Meteor if it's going to be your main skill. (As opposed to the guide that maxes Meteor first.)

The other thing I'd reconsider from the guide is it's emphasis on block, especially if you plan to favor Fireball. (Block vs. Vitality is an age old debate. Both work, but the block route does limit your shield options.) Meteor and Frozen Orb are both on timers, so Faster Cast Rate isn't as important. Fireball benefits greatly from faster cast. Shields that give you Faster Cast Rate are terrible for blocking, so when using them you might want those dexterity points in vitality instead. Also, if you're running more than teleporting, you won't be taking full advantage of block as your block chance is penalized when running, so keep that in mind when you decide.

Going down so many floors and bumping into walls everywhere was frustrating.

I don't know how the setting work on Console, but if you have the option, you may want to turn up the brightness of the game. On PC, when you start up it has you calibrate it, and if you follow their instructions to set it when the logo is barely visible, I find the game way to dark for my old eyes.